Paul Craig Roberts Fed Trapped by Money Printing

President Putin ends Russia and NATO Anti-Ballistic Missile cooperation

In another powerful and significant move for peace, the President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin has cancelled a presidential order which in 2011, had set up an interdepartmental working group under the authority of the Russian Presidential Administration designed to develop ways to establish cooperation with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in the sphere of 'missile defense'.


Sigh of relief
Many experts and NATO watchers familiar with the decree and the attempts by the Russian Federation to develop an equal partnership relationship with NATO on the basis of mutual respect and transparency may now breathe a collective sigh of relief thatPresident Putin has finally run out of patience with the alliance.

The wisdom of the president can not be questioned after what many have been saying for years and dozens of failed attempts to develop a partnership with the alliance. These “failures” have been many fold and compounded by NATO own actions and have included NATO insistence on Like the proverbial Russian bear, President Putin has been slow to be provoked into action but once that action has been decided it is resolute.

Empty rhetoric
It was almost obvious from the outset that despite all of its rhetoric to the contrary, rhetoric that has proven time and time again to be as empty as the minds of those espousing it, that NATO had no intention of allowing the Russian Federation into its “fold” as an equal partner.

This total inability by NATO to adjust and modernize its strategic mission taking into account the contemporary realities of Russia as a leading European power interested in peace, rule of law and mutually beneficial cooperation, may be due to its inherent nature of being an organization that was designed, and whose only purpose was, to contain the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, and/or that NATO has become a wholly owned global proxy for the attempted advancement of short-sighted, myopic US geopolitical military domination and American hegemony by force.

Failure of cooperation
Since the chaotic days at the end of the cold war the newly formed and struggling Russian Federation, rising from the ashes of the shattered and broken greatest power in the history of mankind, vainly attempted to find a way to cooperate, and at times it seemed to appease, its former Warsaw Pact adversary, one which should have been disbanded at the moment of the demise of the Soviet bloc. But unfortunately the lust for hegemony and global military domination and the new modus operandi of “advancement of interests by force” did not allow the West to dismantle their war and death machine.

This first occurred in Yugoslavia and Serbia, when NATO promised Russia to allow Russian peacekeepers, the when the time came for Russian boots on the ground quickly did an about face.

This slap in the face to Russia and Russian interests and allies then occurred many times again, as NATO was used to launch illegal wars of aggression and military adventures against country after country all over the world.

Then with what has been revealed to be the false “War on Terror” paradigm, when Russia on countless occasions attempted to cooperate express its will, Russia was spurned time and time again.

Lastly, we have seen that despite the new nature of Russia, as a growing democratic country, promoting peace and cooperation, NATO continued expanding to the east and in fact expanding globally and even into space, while at the same time surrounding Russia with missiles and military weapons, under the pretense of the bogey man of an attack from the equally demonized Islamic Republic of Iran.

Seeking to become an equal mutual partner in their Missile Shield, Russia attempted time and time again to work with NATO. However NATO locked out all attempts by Russia to participate and gain assurance that the missiles were not being placed to neutralize Russia itself.

Russia repeatedly asked for a written guarantee, in light of the track record by the West of proving their spoken guarantees mean nothing, something proven in Serbia and Kosovo, but one was never provided, let alone considered.

Russia attempted to introduce what was called the Sectoral Approach, a wise and carefully planned as well as effective “shield” strategy to protect both Europe and Russia itself, but was spurned at every turn.

Missile defense a Trojan horse for a first strike
It has been proven and is now part of the public record that the interceptor missiles and missile shield elements of the US and its NATO allies, the ones that have been surreptitiously placed to surround Russia, can be turned into first strike offensive weapons with almost the literal flick of a switch. These so-called “defensive” missiles are also largely capable of delivering nuclear payloads directly into the heart of Russia.

This can be further underlined by witnesses to US and NATO Missile Defense Shield tests and scientists knowledgeable in radar and the elements that make up the shield. As a “shield”, the US/NATO missile system is almost completely ineffective allowing more than 40% of missiles to pass unstopped and almost 100% ineffective against small missiles and shorter range weapons. It is a given that the designers of the system are aware of this. So why install the system? For a totally devastating and unanswerable first strike.

Peace
The victory for President Putin, the Russian Federation and peace in Syria has now proven beyond any shadow of a doubt that President Putin is a leader who truly honors and believes in peace, rule of law and transparency. Unlike the Nobel Peace Prize winning Obama, who attempts to continue policies of aggressive war, advancement of interests by force and personally approved extra-judicial execution by drone. PresidentPutin has said he does not care about the Noble Peace Prize and in this he is sincere. He cares about peace.

New arms race
NATO’s relentless worldwide and eastward expansion have forced countries to build weapons to defend themselves, a right any sovereign nation has against the threat of an aggressor and has caused the world to enter a global arms race the likes of which make the Cold War seem like a training exercise.

Russia, China, Venezuela and North Korea in particular, have been forced to spend billions on defense and their militaries to counter the threat of NATO. And with the constant bellicose elements North Korea and other countries the US does not favor, have been forced to seek a nuclear deterrence. This has led to a much more dangerous world but has proven to be necessary after what the world witnessed was done to Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya by the US and its NATO allies.

Arctic
US/NATO continue to attempt to advance their interests by force and to militarize once neutral and peaceful countries and regions, with the case of Scandinavian countries and even the Arctic. The attempted move into the Arctic by the US/NATO is clearly a strategy to obtain resources and territory by force. Something as illegal as its aggressive wars and the Bush Doctrine of preventive wars.

Russia’s new position in the world
Two recent events, one the refusal by President Putin to be swayed by the threat ofterrorist acts by Saudi Prince Bandar with the “full backing of the United States, and two, the prevention of another aggressive attack on a sovereign nation by US/NATO on Syria, have once again moved the world into the realm of being a healthy multi-polar place and have effectively put an end to US plans for “Global American Hegemony”, a fact admitted even by grand geopolitical chess architect Zbignew Brzhinky.

Warnings issued
Warning have been issued to Russia from many corners since the beginning of NATO’s eastward expansion. This includes the warnings that the the US/NATO shield can be quickly and seamlessly converted into deadly first strike architecture. So why would Russia continue in attempting to cooperate with a plan to surround itself with NATO missiles? The answers to that may be Machiavellian or they may be as simple as the fact that Russia was attempting to cooperate with the West until the very end, in a peaceful manner.

End of an era
With the very quiet repealing of the presidential order, dated April 25, 2012 officially establishing cooperation with NATO and titled: "On the Repeal of the Russian President's Order 'On the Special Representative of the Russian President for Missile Defense Interaction with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)'", President Vladimir Putin has officially put an end to the era where Russia attempted to appease and cooperate with its former foe NATO and has quietly, once again quietly asserted Russia’s own sovereignty and shown that Russia will stand on the side of peace, not only in word but by quiet dignified deed.
Read more: http://voiceofrussia.com/2013_11_03/President-Putin-ends-Russia-NATO-ABM-cooperation-0148/


NATO continued shows of aggression
Meanwhile NATO will be holding war games a 30-second jet flight from the territory of the Russian Federation


Credit to The Voice of Russia

Russia Nuke Attack Drill As China Selects U.S. Targets

Global Power: Moscow launches four ICBMs in a large-scale nuclear drill as Chinese state media, brandishing detailed maps, show how Beijing's nuclear submarines can attack U.S. cities. We press "reset," they press "launch."

In March 2009, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton presented Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov with a red "reset button" to symbolize improved ties. The era of confrontation when American presidents demanded the tearing down of walls was over. From now on, we would make nice.

Fast-forward to 2012, when President Obama met with Dmitry Medvedev, Russia's then-president and now prime minister, at the Nuclear Security Summit in Seoul, South Korea.

That was when Obama assured Medvedev he'd have more leeway after his re-election to weaken missile defense. This would help him achieve his dream of U.S. disarmament and bring about, as he expressed in Prague in 2009, "a world without nuclear weapons."

Apparently the Russians and the Chinese do not share that dream. On Wednesday, Russian strategic forces carried out a large-scale surprise military drill that included the test launch of two land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles and two submarine-launched ballistic missiles.

So while Russia expands and tests its offensive and defensive missile capabilities, President Obama lets our missile capabilities wither and caves to Russian demands to halt previously planned expansion.

To placate Moscow, Obama has already betrayed our allies in Poland and the Czech Republic by abandoning plans to deploy ground-based interceptors and missile defense in those countries.

Our Chinese friends have also noticed that the famous "reset" button has been replaced with one marked "easy." China's military carried out on July 24 a third test of a long-range DF-31A road-mobile ballistic missile capable of hitting the U.S. with nuclear warheads.

According to a recently published report by the Air Force National Air and Space Intelligence Center, "China has the most active and diverse ballistic missile development program in the world."

Last Monday, Chinese state-run media — including China Central TV, the People's Daily, the Global Times, the PLA Daily, the China Youth Daily and the Guangmin Daily — ran identical, top-headlined reports boasting of the "awesomeness" of the People's Liberation Army navy's strategic submarine force.

It is indeed formidable. China's sub fleet is reportedly the world's second-largest, with about 70 vessels. About 10 are nuclear-powered, and four or more of those are nuclear ballistic submarines.

In 2010, the Type 094 Jin class entered the service. It is capable of launching 12 to 16 JL-2 missiles with a range of about 8,700 miles, covering much of the continental U.S. with single or multiple independently targetable re-entry vehicle warheads.

What was chilling about the reports is that they included photos and graphics detailing, among other things, damage projections for Seattle and Los Angeles after being hit by Chinese nuclear warheads and the deadly radiation that would spread all the way to Chicago.

"The 12 JL-2 nuclear warheads carried by one single Type 094 SSBN can kill and wound 5 million to 12 million Americans," the Global Times reported.

"If we launch our DF 31A ICBMs over the North Pole," the paper added, "we can easily destroy a whole list of metropolises on the East Coast and the New England region of the U.S., including Annapolis, Philadelphia, New York, Boston, Portland, Baltimore and Norfolk, whose population accounts for about one-eighth of America's total residents."

Clearly the Russians and the Chinese are not dreaming of a world without nuclear weapons, just of one without American resistance to their ambitious plans.

Read More At Investor's Business Daily: http://news.investors.com/ibd-editorials/110113-677675-russia-conducts-nuclear-missile-attack-drill.htm#ixzz2jgNucFJY

A must-see: Rare hybrid solar eclipse sweeps across Africa, US, Europe

Israeli defense minister with top generals could have been hit by the bomb trap which injured five soldiers

The unanswered questions about the IDF’s actions against Gaza terrorist tunnels Thursday night, Oct. 31 point to operational flaws. Not surprisingly, the IDF announced Friday that the operation will be subjected to a special inquiry.

Most reports agree that a bomb trap was planted in the tunnel discovered last month running from Khan Younes in the Gaza Strip to Kibbutz Ein Hashlosaha and was triggered when the combat engineering unit approached the tunnel with equipment for destroying it. Five men were injured, one seriously, including a Lt. Colonel and a major.

It is hard to escape this major lapse in surveillance on the part of the Southern Command chiefs and the field officers who planned the operation. It poses the next question: How did Hamas manage to plant a bomb trap in the 1.5 km tunnel unnoticed three weeks after it was uncovered by the IDF?

At the time, the army spokesman said the tunnel had branches and niches for concealing explosives. Maybe they were there all the time. And why was the tunnel not examined and made safe before the engineering unit went into action?

Four days ago, Monday, Oct. 29, Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon and a group of generals were photographed visiting the exposed tunnel. What if they had run into the same booby-trap as the engineering unit Thursday? Were they lucky or had it not yet been put in position?

None of the answers to these questions turned up by the IDF investigation are likely to be good.

1. If Hamas planted the explosives in the tunnel before the minister’s visit, it would have hoped to bring off a major coup by assassinating Israel’s defense minister and several high generals at the lowest moment in its fortunes.

2. If the bombs were inserted later, Hamas may have got the idea when its spotters watching to see what the army was doing with the tunnel saw the minister and retinue visiting.

The commanders of Hamas’s military arm the Ezz a-din Al Al-Qassam, Mohamed Deif and Marwan Issa, would have seen their chance of an ambush and planted it there ready for the IDF operation. How come that no Israeli commander took this eventuality into account?

A senior IDF officer issued this version of the event: The engineering unit was not inside the tunnel when the bomb trap went off, but outside, after dropping a drill through a hole in the ceiling to be used for widening one of the openings. The drill struck the bombs and five members of the unit were injured outside the tunnel by the very powerful blast.

This doesn’t explain why an inspection of the tunnel was not ordered before the operation, taking a possible trap into account.

The same question applies to the prime minister and defense minister. They failed to take into account that the Obama administration would feel obliged to prove its non-involvement in the Israeli air strikes in Syria, conducted Thursday night to destroy anti-air missiles destined for Hizballah. This was proven by betrayal of the air strikes through leaks to US media.

Israeli government and army leaders were beside themselves with fury. But their mistake was to believe they could continue to trust America after long years of military and strategic collaboration in the Middle East arena, even though President Obama amply demonstrated he had opted for a separate agenda often divorced from Israel’s interests.

One of the conclusions from the events of the last 24 hours is that certain home improvements are called for in the Israeli armed forces, before they are ready to go for the big game, Iran’s nuclear program. Flaws keep on turning up in minor operations. The measure of a strong army and a serious military option is to be found less in its advanced weaponry and generous budget and more in performance on the ground. The tunnel operations against Hamas in the Gaza Strip exposed vulnerabilities typical of an army which has not been called to fight in more than two years. They are minor but require serious attention.


Credit to DEBKAfile

Triple sun shines in China

All-Time High Unemployment: The Economic Depression In Europe Just Keeps Getting Deeper

The unemployment rate in the eurozone is higher than it has ever been before.  This week we learned that eurozone unemployment came in at an all-time high of 12.2 percent for September.  Back in January 2012, it was sitting at just10.4 percent.  So anyone that believes that "things are getting better" in Europe is just being delusional.  In fact, the economic depression in Europe just keeps getting deeper.  

The funny thing is that the mainstream media will barely call what is going on in Europe a "recession" even though the unemployment rates in both Spain and Greece are now much higher than anything that the United States ever experienced during the "Great Depression" of the 1930s.  There haven't been as many headlines about the financial crisis in Europe lately because the ECB has been papering over the debt problems of the periphery (at least for the moment), but the economic conditions on the ground for average Europeans just continue to get even worse. 

 Later on in this article, you will read about a 25-year-old Spanish man with three college degrees that moved to London in a desperate search for a job who is now cleaning up poop for a living.  The economic collapse of Europe continues to march on, and there is no end in sight.

All you have to do is look at the latest unemployment numbers to realize that things are getting worse in Europe.

In Italy, the unemployment rate is up to 12.5 percent.

In January 2012, less than two years ago, it was sitting at just 8.9 percent.

In Greece, the unemployment rate is up to an astounding 27.6 percent.

In January 2012, it was sitting at just 21.4 percent.

In Spain, the unemployment rate is up to 26.6 percent.

In January 2012, it was sitting at just 22.8 percent, and all the way back in January 2008 it was just 8.6 percent.

The youth unemployment statistics in the eurozone are even more horrifying...

Unemployment among the under-25s rose by 22,000 in September to 3,548,000 – nudging up youth jobless rate to 24.1%. In France, the youth jobless rate jumped from 25.6% to 26.1%, while in Italy it increased from 40.2% to 40.4%.

But as bad as those numbers are, they are nothing compared to what is going on in Spain and Greece.  In Spain, the youth unemployment rate is up to 56.5 percent, and in Greece the youth unemployment rate is up to 57.3 percent.

And of course unemployment is not the only problem that the European economy is dealing with right now.  The following are some more facts about the European economy that show that the economic depression in Europe just keeps getting deeper...

-European car sales are on pace to hit a 23 year low in 2013.

-The percentage of "bad loans" in Spain has soared to a new all-time record high.

-The number of mortgage applications in Spain has fallen 90 percentsince the peak of the market.

-Citigroup is projecting that the unemployment rate in Greece will reach32 percent in 2015.

-Over the last several years, Italy has experienced the biggest collapse in GDP growth that it has ever seen.  Overall, the GDP of Italy has contracted by about 8 percent since 2008.

-The number of unemployed workers in Cyprus is now five times higher than it was before the financial crisis of 2008.

-It is being projected that Spain's debt to GDP ratio will rise to nearly 100 percent by the end of next year.

-The debt to GDP ratio of Portugal is already up to 123 percent.

-The debt to GDP ratio of Italy is already up to 127 percent.

-Even though Greece has implemented a whole host of "austerity measures", the debt to GDP ratio of Greece is now up to 156 percent.

But what these numbers cannot really communicate is the tremendous amount of pain and despair that millions upon millions of Europeans are experiencing right now.

For example, consider the story of Benjamin Serra Bosch, a 25-year-old Spanish man that moved to London in a desperate search for a job.  He has three college degrees, including a Master's Degree from the IEBS Business School in Barcelona.  The following is a rough translation of a message that he recently posted on Facebook...

My name is Benjamín Serra, I have two bachelor degrees and a master's degree, and I clean toilets.

No, it is not a joke. I do it to pay the rent for my room in London.

I've been working in a famous chain of cafes in the United Kingdom since May, and for the first time today, after 5 months working there, I see it clearly. I have been cleaning toilets. My thought was: "I received distinction in my two degrees and I clean other peoples' poop in a country that isn't my own." Well, I also make coffee, clean the tables and wash cups.

And I am not ashamed to do so. Cleaning is a very decent job. What embarrasses me is having to do so because no one has given me an opportunity in Spain. Like me, there are many Spaniards, especially in London. "You are a plague," I was told once here. And let's not kid ourselves. We are not young people on an adventure to learn the language and have new experiences. We are immigrants.

I've always been very proud, I am not going to deny. Those who know me, you know. And I have to bust out a smile at customers who look over my shoulder as I am simply a "barista" (as they call it here). Some are so outrageous that it makes me want to pull out my University and master degrees and put them in their face. But it would not really do anything.  It appears that those titles now only serve to clean the poop that I clean from the toilets in the cafe. A pity.

I thought that it deserved something better after putting so much effort in my academic life. It seems that I was wrong.

As economic conditions continue to decline all over Europe, anger and frustration with the "European experiment" continue to grow.  UKIP's Nigel Farage expressed these sentiments very eloquently during a speech on the 23rd of October when he stated that "what we are saying, large numbers of us from every single EU member state is: we don't want that flag, we don't want the anthem that you all stood so ram-rod straight for yesterday, we don't want EU passports, we don't want political union."

Unfortunately, the elite of Europe are so obsessed with their little experiment that the only "solutions" to these economic problems that they are even willing to consider involve even more European integration.

And Americans certainly should not be looking down their noses at what is happening in Europe.

What is going on in Italy, France, Spain and Greece will be coming here soon enough.  In fact, even during the midst of this so-called "economic recovery", poverty continues to absolutely explode in the United States.

Economic conditions in both the United States and Europe have never even gotten close to where they were prior to 2008, and now the next major wave of the economic collapse is rapidly approaching.

This is just the beginning.  Things are going to get much worse in the years ahead.

Credi to Economic Collapse